Lost in Time, Lost in Mind
by A. E. Stover
Summary: Sometime after they had wandered aimlessly in the Forest of Illusions, this being the resulting aftermath of having been thoroughly harassed by a flock of strange winged creatures, whose feathers possessed the same properties as a mirror, the former members of Konoha's Team Seven came to the realization that they were utterly and hopelessly lost.


_**Lost in Time, Lost in Mind  
**_written by **A. E. Stover  
**this version is **not edited**

.

Written for the 2012 SSM event at the _SasuSaku Month_ LiveJournal community, with the prompt of "HALLUCINATION" in mind.

.

.

.

* * *

**LOST IN TIME  
****LOST IN MIND**

* * *

.

.

.

Sometime after they had wandered aimlessly in the Forest of Illusions, this being the resulting aftermath of having been thoroughly harassed by a flock of strange winged creatures, whose feathers possessed the same properties as a mirror, the former members of Konoha's Team Seven came to the realization that they were utterly and hopelessly lost.

And, to make matters worse, they had lost most of their food and supplies at their last campsite, where they'd been ambushed by crazy mirror-winged birds of terror.

Sasuke reached for the compass in his pocket and was greeted, for the third time that day, with a red arrow spinning rapidly around and around and around and around—

"Sasuke-kun, you're crushing it."

Sasuke wordlessly tossed it over his shoulder. He didn't know why he was so insistent in keeping it even after they'd learned that the soil components of the forest would render any compass or device reliant on the earth's magnetic forces useless. He'd only succeeded in further aggravating himself and his teammates with every hopeful peek he took at the compass. And as if there weren't enough problems already, the sky hanging above the Forest of Illusions changed every other hour or so, making it impossible to use the sun to track which direction they were going.

Behind him, Naruto fumbled to catch the discarded compass before it fell to the forest floor miles away from where they were in the treetops. "Cheer up, Sasuke. We'll find a way out eventually."

"We would've been out already if you hadn't provoked those birds to attack," Sasuke gritted through his teeth. How he managed to sound civilized after a week of wandering aimless in the foreign woodland was beyond him.

For the second time that morning, he briefly entertained the idea of burning the forest to the ground. But he knew that was out of the question. The forest was a protected area, Sakura had said, home to a multitude of species dangerously close to extinction. He recalled the way those birds had nearly pecked his eye out. Dangerously close to extinction indeed, he agreed with a smoldering glare at his feet.

"Stop arguing," their captain and only female member cut in gently.

The events of the past week had taken its toll on them all, but Sakura had taken on the brunt of the stress and pressure. Her hair hung limply around her face, her elastic hair-tie having snapped long before and her spares as lost as they were in the forest. Grease and splotches of dirt covered her face, body, and clothes, and her boots were caked with dry mud. There were bags under her eyes, from nights of missed sleep as she nursed the two of them, sometimes all of them, back to health from a plethora of unfortunate encounters with the endangered creatures of the forest, their injuries ranging from small gashes from a rare leopard to severe poisoning from the gasses released by a blossoming flower.

Sasuke kept a careful eye on Sakura as she leaned back against the trunk of a tree they had all agreed to stop at, and helped her unstrap the small pack from her tired shoulders.

Sakura continued; "We have to stay focused. We don't know what other kinds of hostile animals we might encounter."

"Or plants," Naruto quipped.

"Or pla— Naruto! Quit joking around."

"No, I'm serious! Look! It's a giant tentacle monster!"

Sasuke scooped Sakura into his arms, remembering to grab her bag of medical supplies, and leaped out of the way before a slimy vine crushed the massive tree they'd been resting on. He quickly found Naruto and they darted deeper and deeper into the forest, getting far, far away the only thing on their minds.

.

.

.

When the forest fell silent of the strange creaking and oozing of the slimy "tentacle monster" — or jellyfish vines, as Sakura's infinite knowledge informed them — they stopped to break at the base of a hollowed-out tree.

After checking to make sure it was abandoned, the three quickly worked to use what little materials they had to turn it into a decent shelter. They scattered leaves and soft ferns from the forest floor over the dirt, carefully removing red-checked beetles and other crawling insects, and settled down around a fire. Sakura was the first to doze off, and rightfully so, and Sasuke volunteered to take the first watch.

Night crawled by, but the moon was nowhere to be seen. Instead, stars littered the sky above, glimmering specks of light sparkling through thick leaves and branches of trees that had grown to monstrous heights. Sasuke sat by the small campfire, poking at the flames with a stick and tossing in dry branches and twigs every now and then to keep the fire going.

A fox slunk past their campsite, taking a brief moment to glance their way as it went by, and Sasuke took the time to admire the orange glow the fire cast on the fox's white chest before it disappeared. Owls hooted from nearby trees, and frogs sang a rambunctious tune in the dark as snakes and slugs danced in the grass.

Sasuke couldn't remember the last time he'd been on a relatively peaceful mission like the one they were on now. Everything about it struck him as odd, almost dream-like. They'd dealt with a few thugs and rogue shinobi while escorting a child prince and his mentor back to his rural country, discovered the cliché betrayal of the young prince's mentor, dealt with a haphazardly assembled coup, and declared Konoha's full support of the child prince and his new mentor. It was an easy mission, purposely assigned to them to give them a chance to relax and knead out the restlessness that came during the slow periods.

Though they'd gotten lost on their way back to the village, all in all the mission was an enjoyable and memorable one. It would be one that they would, no doubt, recall with a certain fondness no matter how terrible the hostilities they faced. A certain fondness, Sasuke came to realize, that reminded him of his time spent with his brother, time spent with his family, and time spent with his teammates when they were all younger — and when things were easier.

How long ago that seemed, those days when he and Naruto picked fights over the littlest things, when he saw Sakura as nothing but a nuisance, when he had succumbed to a single goal, a single purpose. How long ago it all felt; especially on a mission as simple and straightforward as theirs was now. He almost felt as if they'd been plunged backwards in time, felt as if they were running circles in a loop that never changed. But they would no longer be lost in time when the mission was over. Everything would disappear and settle back to the way things had become once they returned, and anticipating that return left a bitter taste in his mouth, for there was nothing that brought them together in Konoha now. Sakura was running the hospital and Naruto was being polished by the village before being installed as the new Hokage.

And Sasuke… He was doing missions here and there, being assigned to special recon and security tasks; given enough responsibilities, enough things to do, to want to stay rather than to leave.

Then he wondered, suddenly, whether or not they truly were lost in this forest. Were they falling off the trail on purpose, he thought, to avoid going home? Had they been able to find their way back all along? Did they know where they were in every clearing, in every hole, ditch, and hollowed-out tree they camped out in? He reached back into his pocket for the compass but didn't find it, then realized that he'd chucked it off somewhere. Naruto probably had it.

"You tossed it away, remember? Naruto has it now."

If Sasuke was surprised to see her awake, he didn't show it. Instead he just said; "You should be sleeping. You need your rest."

Sakura took a seat near the fire across from him. She drew her knees close and rested her chin on them. "I can't sleep. I'm too exhausted to sleep."

Sasuke found that to be a strange thing to say, but realized that it wasn't strange at all. To be so exhausted that you couldn't sleep — to force every nerve and fiber of your body to unravel years' of pent-up rage, grief, and loneliness, to force your clouded mind to clear, to force yourself back to the life of a shinobi belonging to a village, to force yourself to surrender it all — it was something Sasuke knew intimately.

He sighed, dropping the stick in his hands and tilting his head back. He could feel the muscles on his neck and shoulders move, the pressure that had been pooling around his head leaving out of a single breath he sighed out.

"Everything feels like a dream," Sakura murmured, the corners of her mouth curling up into a contented smile. "It's like this is all just a dream. I feel like I'm… Like I'm hallucinating." Then, she looked at him with a lazy grin. "Are you real, Sasuke-kun?"

"You're tired."

Sakura sighed in disappointment, folding her arms over her knees and dropping her head on top. "You've got zero sense of humor."

Sasuke glanced at her, sitting before the fire with her knees to her chest, her eyelids and shoulders drooping with fatigue, and stress clouding her eyes and mind. Guilt crept into his conscious. _She's just trying to de-stress,_ it told him. _Cut her some slack. Let her be goofy… She saved your life, remember? Twice._

Sasuke sighed and pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. "Sorry," he muttered at last, "I'm just tired."

There was a period of silence that ticked by after his words, and when she remained silent still Sasuke wondered if it was because she fell asleep or if it was something he did again. He dropped his hands and looked across the fire.

Sakura sat very still and very quiet, staring right at him with a blank expression.

Sasuke didn't get it. Was it something he said? He waited a few more seconds before finally saying; "What."

At the sound of his voice, Sakura's eyes widened a fraction of an inch and she drew back in surprise. After a beat or two of more silence, she relaxed.

"Nothing," she finally said, and it irritated the hell out of him because he knew it wasn't 'nothing' and that there most definitely was '_something_.' But she continued to talk, and Sasuke let her be.

"It's just… You never apologized to me before." She seemed to reconsider her words because she made a nervous noise and quickly spoke again; "Um, well, you have apologized before, but never, like — like _that_. Like, just… Just apologizing. You never just apologized. You… You never said that you were sorry, is what I meant."

"Ah," Sasuke said, not knowing what else to say. "Sorry," he added for good measure, since she apparently liked it so much.

He was rewarded with a giggle, something he hadn't heard from Sakura in a long, long time. It sent him into the past again, and when he looked up, he thought he saw the Sakura from fourteen years ago, long pink hair and a red dress, a fresh, young face with hopeful, loving eyes. That was the Sakura he had killed, he thought, when he left the village fourteen years ago.

But the Sakura in front of her now was stronger, more confident, and happier. _Happy,_ he told himself as he went back to the fire, _she was happy now, and that was all tha__t really matters._

_Was it really,_ a small part of him asked. _Was that really all he cared about?_

"You've changed," she said wistfully, drawing him back out from the dark recesses of his mind. When he looked back at her, he could see mirth dancing in her eyes, the exhaustion finally giving way to bright cheer.

Deciding to amuse her, Sasuke played along as he fed the fire. "Hm?"

"Yes," she affirmed with a smile, rocking back a little as if she were an artist observing her model. "You're happier, I think."

Sasuke had picked up a branch to toss into the fire and faltered when he heard her reply. _Happier. Him?_

"_Are_ you happier, Sasuke-kun?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yes." He was lying.

Sakura was silent, and he knew she was watching him. "I think you're lying," she said at last.

Sasuke sighed. "No. Yes. Does it matter?" He heard Sakura sigh too, and heard the exhaustion creep back into her mind. When he looked up at her again, she was resting her head on her arms again, sitting with her eyes closed and brow furrowed slightly in thought.

"It's my fault," she said suddenly, rubbing the side of head with one hand. "I shouldn't have expected you to integrate back into the village so easily. Even Naruto warned me about it, telling me I shouldn't head the hospital until you were fully… Well, you know."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her. "I don't need supervision," he said, almost scathingly. He almost regretted it, but she didn't seem to care so he left it at that.

"It's not about supervision," she said after a while. "It's about keeping you busy. We know you — you feel useless unless you're doing something. You're not — you're not like the rest of us." She corrected herself; "Well, _most_ of us…"

From her condescending tone, Sasuke knew he was talking about Suigetsu, who had taken refuge in Konoha after the war. He drove all the Konoha Anbu crazy with his bloodthirst, so much so that Tsunade had him dumped onto Ibiki to be a sort of protégé for the former interrogator. Needless to say, Ibiki wasn't very pleased with his new responsibilities, but they seemed to be getting along fine.

At least, that's what Karin had told them. Then again, Karin's idea of getting along was pretty… loose.

Compared to dealing with Suigetsu, dealing with Sasuke, he knew, was supposed to be like dealing with a sleeping infant — easy until woken up.

"Ugh. Just thinking about that guy makes me wish we could stay here forever. I hate being his therapist. I will never understand how you can tolerate him."

Sasuke chuckled, amused. "It's an acquired skill," he said, remembering his days first as Team Hebi, then as Team Hawk. He remembered lots of bickering, lots of fighting, lots of blood — Karin's blood; he remembered stabbing her, and then Sakura — he almost killed her again, and Naruto — him too, he'd almost killed both of them, and—

Sasuke sighed, and he found himself pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Tired?" was Sakura's inquisitive quip.

"Ah."

They fell into an easy silence, the fire crackling as it burned. Sakura laid back on the forest floor, stretching her arms up and folding them behind her head. Sasuke fed the fire, listening to the owls hoot and a gentle breeze rustling leaves overhead. He still couldn't see the moon, and for one reason or another found that he wasn't particularly fond of the moon anyway, so it was fine that he couldn't seem to see it.

"This is so peaceful," Sakura said quietly, and Sasuke didn't realize he had closed his eyes until she had spoken, because he opened his eyes then. "I can't remember the last time we had a mission like this." She laughed and then added, softly; "I kinda wish we could stay here like this forever."

Sasuke made a noise of agreement as he leaned back on his elbows and closed his eyes.

"But then, Naruto would probably flip out if he doesn't finish his Hokage training in time."

Sasuke chuckled, and Sakura sighed.

"He's got a week and a half left. Did you know? Only eleven more days of training before he's officially recognized by the daimyo as a candidate."

Eleven days. Sasuke turned the number over in his head. In eleven days, Naruto would be formally recognized. Three months after that, he would be elected. Naruto would become Hokage in three months. Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto, _that_ Naruto, the sixth Hokage, while Sakura ran the village's largest hospital and Kakashi continued to teach the younger generation, despite having said that he would never teach again.

Where would that leave Sasuke? Was he resigned to be by their side and watch them walk forward while he followed behind an arm's length away? If not, what could he do?

_What,_ he wondered, _was there left for me to do?_

"You could marry me."

Sasuke felt his eyes widen in disbelief. He didn't know what he was more surprised of; that he had spoken aloud without realizing, or the question itself. He snapped his gaze up to the woman lying on the forest floor across the fire from him, the woman whom he had once killed years ago, the woman who had saved his life, the woman who loved him despite all the things that had come between them.

"If you really feel like there's no place in the village for you," Sakura said, each word uttered purposefully, "then make one for yourself. Nobody's going to give you anything, Sasuke. You have to take the initiative."

But he _had_ taken the initiative — fourteen years ago — and look where that landed him; a dead, innocent brother, a village ravaged by war, a distrusting and spiteful community, and a ruined name.

"You said you wanted to start over?" Sakura continued, rising to sit up and pin him with a challenging gaze. "Then start over. Marry me."

Sasuke, for once, was speechless.

Sakura held her gaze for a moment longer. "I can't help you if you're not willing to move on. You have to stop thinking about what you've done. Nothing can change the past."

Her words were old and bitter in his ears. And when he replied, "I know," he wasn't surprised that so were his.

"I don't think you do."

She sounded angry, frustrated. Sasuke blamed it on her fatigue.

When she sighed again, it was loud and impatient. Then, she cleared her throat, making Sasuke look up.

"So?" she asked, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at him with a faint smile.

Sasuke stared blankly at her, not sure what was to come next.

"Come on," she pressed with a grin, "I just asked you to marry me! I think I deserve an answer or something."

Sasuke allowed a laugh, and he felt the familiar warmth of a contagious mirth spreading through him. "Maybe," he mused aloud, enjoying the way she rolled her eyes with a knowing smile.

"In girl-talk, that's a yes. And since I did the asking, I guess that makes me the guy…" Sakura's eyes glinted teasingly. "Which would make you the girl."

Before Sasuke could fire a retort, a third voice joined in.

"Che. You just figured that out now?"

Sasuke felt himself tense when Naruto suddenly plopped down on the ground right next to him while a hand ruffled his hair.

"I thought it'd be obvious, what with the number of hissy fits our little Sasuke-chan throws around all the time."

Sasuke shot his blond teammate a withering look.

Naruto chuckled, but backed off, scooting over a few inches to make some space between them and lying on the ground on his stomach. Sasuke thought that had been the end of the idiot's _idioting_, but he was far from it.

Naruto propped his head up with a fist on his cheek and flashed Sasuke a grin. "So, when can I call you Haruno-san?"

Sasuke knocked Naruto's arm away and scowled when Naruto only laughed. "When you're good and dead," he said to the grinning blond.

"Speaking of the dead," Naruto suddenly said, turning over and pulling something out of his pants pocket, "The compass is alive and well! See? It's not spinning or doing anything crazy anymore."

Sasuke suddenly felt as if someone had hit him upside the head.

Naruto produced the instrument and dangled it before them with a flourish. "Ta-daa!"

"Thank god," Sakura said, scrambling towards them with the desperation of a starving man running after food. "Quick, before it goes wonky again, which way is east? Which way's easy?"

Sasuke took the compass from Naruto's hand with a strange kind of reluctance and peered at the face of the instrument.

The red arrow was spinning wildly in circles.

"Oh no," Sakura moaned when she caught the look on Sasuke's face. "It's spinning again, isn't it? Oh, God, I hate this stupid forest…"

Sasuke watched the arrow spin around and around and around—

"Naruto… What's up with your face?"

"What? Can't take my handsomeness?"

"It's… It's all covered with red blotches, like a rash, and—"

"Ugh, now I'm all itchy! Why am I so itchy?"

"Poison ivy," Sasuke guessed quietly, still staring at the compass as the arrow spun.

"It must've been that bush I used to pee in, like, five minutes ago!"

"I told you not to touch anything without asking me!"

"I thought you were sleeping!"

Sasuke's head began spinning and he accredited it to the compass spinning out of control. Carefully, he rose to his feet and trudged into the hollowed-out tree.

"Sasuke-kun?"

"I'm going to sleep."

Naruto scoffed. "Figures you'd go off and leave me to suffer alone, you bastard! What if I die while you're asleep?"

"Naruto, you don't die from poison ivy unless you inhale it."

"What if I did?! I was breathing in the bush! Breathing means inhaling!"

"Stop squirming around and stand still!"

Sasuke dropped himself onto the leaves, lying on his back with his arm pressed against his eyes. In his other hand he held the compass, no doubt still spinning wildly around.

"Whoa! Why are you looking down there?!"

"You said you peed in the bush — I have to see if the rash has spread down that way."

"You could just ask! I think I'd know if my dick had a rash!"

As he gave into exhaustion, the bickering of his teammates continued on, Naruto's voice turning from frantic to calm as Sakura's voice became serious and professional, almost as serious as when she had told him to marry her moments ago. Should he? Marry her and make his own place in the village? Forcing his way back into the village? Should he do it? Could he?

His teammates voices faded away as he slept, the sound of soft silence enveloping him gently and bidding him to a deep, deep sleep. Before he was swept away by fatigue, he thought he heard a voice call out to him—

Sakura, he recognized. It was Sakura's voice. He couldn't hear was she said, and remembering her voice only made him think of — _"You said you wanted to start over? Then start over. __Marry me."_ — something else, something he didn't want; not yet.

Just as his consciousness ebbed away, he heard it, a soft echo of a voice—

"_Please come back, Sasuke-kun."_

In a few more days, he told the voice.

Just a few more days…

.

.

.

The steady beep that fills the room — a room that is thick with the smell of antiseptics and the lingering odor of death that clings to the air — is the only thing that tells me he's still alive. I stare at the numbers to quell the fear that rises with each beep, the monitor the only thing that proves to me that the beeps aren't too far apart, that prove to me that his heart still beats strong and well.

Then there's the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. I never would have guessed that the wait between each breath could go so painfully slow, but I see that now — feel it, in fact.

"He's stable, for the most part," I hear Tsunade say. "There's no permanent damage — his sight and hearing might be blurry the first few weeks… But he should be fine."

"How long… is he gonna be like this?" Naruto's voice is still hoarse from days of lying inert after the war.

"That blast took a lot out of him," Tsunade says. "You two were knocked right out after the strike. It's lucky it took Madara out, or else…" Here, Tsunade stops and clears her throat. "When we brought Sasuke out of the critical, we assumed he would recover on his own. But he sustained more recoil damage than we thought. Whereas your injuries were physical, Sasuke's are more psychological. He's lost in his mind… When he wakes up depends on him."

Tsunade's words are heavy, cutting deep into my heart.

Naruto, to his credit, doesn't yell or shout. Instead he stands there solemnly, watching Sasuke sleep.

It's a peaceful face that Sasuke wears, and we both know it. It's a peacefulness we've never seen on him, even during our many days spent together as a team in the days of our youth.

In a moment, Naruto leaves. The door slams closed behind him, and though it shook my heart it did nothing to stir Sasuke. He was as still as child in deep slumber — as still as a corpse.

I sigh deeply and carefully brush his hair out of his face. I lean over and gently kiss his forehead. And just before I draw away, I whisper to him;

"Please come back, Sasuke-kun."

.

.

.


End file.
